Page 81 of Before You Say Goodbye

“Shall we get a hotel?” he asked.

“We don’t have any stuff” She looked at him, raising her eyebrows.

“Who needs stuff?”

They checked into the first place they found with a vacancy. It was a basic box room with barely any furniture. They brought pizza and sweets with them to eat, and Bowie asked for a room on the top floor so they could smoke out of the windows without being caught. Autumn watched the sun begin to sink over the rooftops and wrote notes for the final edit of her book on the hotel’s headed paper, while Bowie slept off his exhaustion. She woke him up as the sun was setting, knowing he’d be upset if she let him sleep away their precious time together.

For reasons they’d never know, they managed to make love. Somehow, he’d been able to lay back as Autumn brought himtwice to climax before things went back to the way they’d been recently.

“How are you doing this?” he’d murmured halfway through the second time.

“Magic,” she’d whispered, kissing him.

Afterwards, they lay wrapped in one another, dreaming up the future they might have had if things had been different. They talked of the cottages in the countryside, orchards and vegetable patches, two rescue pigs, a flock of chickens, and the mongrel they’d adopt. Autumn told him that their musings were hurting her heart, but Bowie asked her to indulge him a little longer. It would all only ever exist for him in his imagination, he said. Couldn’t she allow him that? She nodded, and they dreamed up winter nights beside a real log fire, shared pans of homemade mulled wine, a library stacked so high that Autumn would need a ladder to reach the books on the very top shelf, and three kids, who loved their parents as fiercely as Bowie loved Emma and Ben.

Autumn had to make a confession. “I’m awful with kids.”

“You’ll be all right if you ever have your own,” he said.

“Perhaps if I had you by my side. We could parent ten children and still manage to give them everything they wanted. But without you? With anyone else . . .”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. She was determined not to let tears ruin what she was quite sure would be their last night alone together.

“You’ll find someone else,” he said. Every now and then, Bowie would throw her a line like this. He was curious to know where she might go and what she would do once he no longer tied her to England, but Autumn couldn’t bring herself to think about it. She knew her lack of willingness to discuss it made him worry about her, but she couldn’t help it. She hated him speaking of the life she would live when he was gone.

“I’ll never meet anyone like you,” she said. She instantly regretted saying it. He was quiet, thinking for a moment, and she anticipated his answer anxiously.

“Perhaps you already have,” he said musingly.

Autumn knew that part of Bowie liked to believe she had fallen in love with Marley. She was possessed by a desperation to correct him almost all day every day, but had so far chosen to respect his request that they should pretend nothing untoward had happened between his lover and his brother — up to now. This was the first time he’d brought it up and it was her chance to set him straight.

“I haven’t,” she said. “And I never will.”

Autumn was cautious. Their day together had been perfect so far, and the chances of her clumsy mouth ruining it were high, so she thought carefully before she spoke again.

“We made a mistake,” she added, in barely more than a whisper. Bowie’s reply was delivered softly and with caution.

“I think Marley was meant to meet you first that night.”

She sighed and swallowed hard. She was desperate for him to have complete faith in her again.

“Please don’t, Bowie,” she said, hearing the words come out of her mouth with surprising strength. “You don’t even believe in any of that stuff.”

Philosophical as they were, they’d talked frequently of fate and destiny, ghosts and the afterlife, and Bowie didn’t have the slightest belief in any of it. When he died, he was adamant that he would cease to exist. She had not been sent by something divine to give him a reason to live longer, as his sisters and his mother frequently suggested. Her appearance in his life had been nothing more than a romantic coincidence and he’d insisted, until now, that their meeting had been a simple, happy accident.

“Or perhaps I was meant to bring you together? Maybe that’s the real reason it all happened this way,” he continued, ignoring her. She pushed him gently away. He rolled onto his back, studying the ceiling.

“You’ve both grown so much these last few months. If you’d met that night, you’d have been over before you even started. Instead, this way, you’ve fallen in love.”

“He’s not in love with me,” she said.

“He’s the male version of you.” He pressed on as though she hadn’t said anything. “Haven’t I always said that?”

“And I’m not in love with him.” Her heart fluttered unhappily. She felt uneasy. Her protesting made her feel uncomfortable. “And even if I were, do you really think we would ever do that to you?” Saying it made her conscience feel a little clearer somehow.

“Do what to me?” he asked. He hitched himself up onto his elbow and leaned over, holding her face in his hand. His fingers shook a little as he spoke. “Autumn, I’ll be dead.”

His candour made her weep. Bowie had been unable to talk of his impending death for a number of weeks now, and, even in the months before, he’d only ever mentioned it if it were absolutely unavoidable. He had come to terms with it, and she knew what that meant. He was really going to leave her. She grabbed his hand and pressed it against her cheek, pulling him towards her. They wrapped their arms around one another and cried.

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